No Space To Grow Bread. . .
They are young, you say,
with hormones raging in bodies
having no desire for libraries and
no entry monies for museums. . .
In these places
where soldiers in perilous times
are forever sowing seeds of freedom,
with farmers tilling soil of rocks and clay
to feed the freedom seekers. . .
and artists seek to feed Man’s Spirit. . .
Not concerned these young, I say,
while making brothers and sisters
like themselves, for they are
not yet ready for parenting.
Bedroom gymnastics are played
and little discipline practiced
in the games of musical beds
with its consequences.
We have seen
when burgeoning fantasies
take their energies and hormones
to crash with anger humankind’s
masterpieces with sledges,
to appease an appetite for revenge
out of control.
The children of hunger with
bloated stomachs starve to death.
Young girls are ravaged
and young boys savaged
while in the lives of elders there is
no hope of place for Spirit to rest.
My Earth is in peril
and the classroom in jeopardy.
There is no room and
our Earth is splitting its seams.
In good conscience,
no longer can we go forth and multiply.
There is no place and no space to grow bread.
Artwork by Claudia Hallissey